DFS MLB Lineups for May 15, 2017 at Draftkings.com & Fanduel.com
For this daily fantasy baseball season, each day there’s a good slate of DFS MLB games, we’ll be writing up a group of pitchers and hitters that we’re considering for our cash and GPP lineups on DraftKings and FanDuel. We’ll also provide a list of stacks to consider, MLB start times, starting pitchers, and game run totals to give you a good idea of where the fantasy goodness might come from on a given night. As with any DFS sport, the advice below is relevant for fantasy purposes. A player or team might be better or worse from a fantasy perspective than they are in real life due to matchup, price, park factor, etc. This is important when constructing a roster.
We’ve got an interesting little 7-game slate where pitching looks pretty nasty. We don’t have a single ace, or even a true number two on the hill tonight, so ownership and lineup construction is going to be all over the map. It’s likely GPPs will be won with bats tonight and how you deploy them will make all the difference.
As a reminder, the best advice we can give if you’re new to DFS MLB is to remember that baseball is a game of variance. You can make a really solid lineup and still fall short of the cash line. Even Clayton Kershaw can have a horrible start, and Mike Trout can still go 0 for 4. Baseball is funny like that. Trust the process and know that if you’re playing quality lineups, you’ll be a winner in the long term.
Another thing to remember outside of making sure your guy is in the lineup, is to always check the weather. Always. Make this something that is part of your basic routine. Baseball games can get postponed! Your players receive no points from postponed games!
5/15/17 MAIN SLATE TOURNAMENT RUNDOWN
DraftKings Fastball: $33 buy-in, $200k guaranteed
DraftKings Four Seamer: $4 buy-in, $100k guaranteed (20 entry max)
DraftKings Perfect Game: $333 buy-in, $150k guaranteed
FanDuel Squeeze: $4 buy-in, $150k guaranteed
FanDuel Grand Salami: $40 buy-in, $175k guaranteed
FanDuel Monster: $333 buy-in, $100k guaranteed
DFS MLB START TIMES, STARTING PITCHERS & GAME TOTALS FOR TODAY’S GAMES
7:07p: Braves (Colon) @ Blue Jays (Bolsinger): 9
7:10p: Astros (Musgrove) @ Marlins (Straily): 9
9:40p: Mets (Wheeler) @ Diamondbacks (Godley): 9.5
10:07p: White Sox (Pelfrey) @ Angels (Chavez): 8.5
10:10p: Athletics (Manaea) @ Mariners (Gallardo): 8
10:10p: Brewers (Anderson) @ Padres (Perdomo): 7.5
10:10p: Dodgers (McCarthy) @ Giants (Cain): 7.5
Best DFS MLB Pitchers for May 15, 2017
Brandon McCarthy @ SF ($9.1k DraftKings, $8.7k FanDuel)
Pitching on today’s slate is bad. Very bad. It’ll be GPP only for me. We actually have two different top-of-the-line aces going, but thanks to the Indians and their odd 6:10p start time, we are robbed of the opportunity to use Chris Archer and Carlos Carrasco on the main slate. This leaves us with McCarthy. There’s actually a decent amount to like about BMac. His current 3.10 ERA is backed up by a 3.77 xFIP and a 4.05 SIERA. So far, he has limited hard contact (26.8%) and is inducing a ground ball over 41% of the time. Next, he moves to the best pitchers park in all of baseball against an offense that has been one of the worst in baseball. The Giants rank dead last in wOBA versus right handers and dead last in ISO and wRC+ versus righties. Typically we’d want a team that strikes out more against the handedness (just 19.4%), but on a day like today, we’ll take what we can get. With only 14 pitchers to choose from and only very few of them as viable options, McCarthy is going to be very highly owned. My best guess is near or exceeding 40% ownership. As always, with that many in the crowd being on the same guy, there’s merit to a tournament fade…especially when the guy you’re fading isn’t likely to put up a monster line anyway.
Other pitchers to consider: Chase Anderson @ Padres (Padres 2nd highest K% vs RHP), Luis Perdomo vs Brewers (Brewers 3rd highest K% vs RHP), Zack Godley vs Mets (only $6.3k on DK), Zack Wheeler @ Diamondbacks (if no Pollock, Peralta)
Best DFS MLB Hitters for May 15, 2017
Kendrys Morales vs ATL ($3.6k DraftKings, $3.2k FanDuel)
Morales and the Blue Jays get the privilege of teeing off against Bartolo Colon on Monday. Colon continues to allow left handed batters to obliterate the ball against him. His K% is well below league average, and he’s allowing fly balls at a higher rate than he has in eight years. Now, add in that Morales has been blistering the ball himself (40%+ hard hit rate), and you see why he’s popping in all the models around the industry. I could easily have written up teammate Justin Smoak here ($3.9k DraftKings, $3.2k FanDuel) as he’s been on a tear and has hit the ball very well against righties over the course of his career. It’s an interesting decision you’ll have to make if you’re only making a single lineup, as both are 1B only eligible. The price is basically the same, and expected production doesn’t heavily favor one to the other. I’ll likely have two versions of a Blue Jays stack, one with each. I’m also fine using these guys as one offs as both have double dong upside against Colon.
Other hitters to consider: Cody Bellinger, Michael Conforto, Jay Bruce, Jake Lamb, Jose Bautista, Yonder Alonso, Derek Dietrich, Brandon Crawford, Mike Trout, Marcell Ozuna
5/15/17 DFS MLB STACKS
I think it was pretty obvious I’ll be stacking against Bartolo Colon today. Great park, team is starting to show signs of life, Bart can’t strike anybody out. It’s the perfect storm. But outside of Toronto, I’ll probably be looking out west to the Angels as they square off against Mike Pelfrey. The Angels are pretty much a stack or Trout team for me. They don’t have much power, so a full stack is really the only place you can get value out of this team as you need guys stringing together hit after hit. Fortunately, Mike Pelfrey is the perfect guy to have that scenario come to fruition. We talked about Bartolo not striking anybody out, well Pelfrey says “hold my beer.” His 7.1% K-rate so far in 2017 seems unreal. And to go along with it, he’s walking guys at a 8.2% clip. His HR/FB rate sits at only 8.3% and that’s definitely going to increase closer to the 13.6% rate he had last season. The Angels aren’t a sexy pick outside of Mike Trout, but Luis Valbuena did recently return from injury to give this team a little more pop. I’ll have plenty of Blue Jays, but mixing in some Angels could give your lineup the uniqueness it needs to pull down a GPP.
Other stacks to consider: Astros vs Dan Straily, A’s vs Yovani Gallardo
